Issue > Poetry

Jeannie Vanasco

Jeannie Vanasco teaches creative writing and the history of the English language at Hunter College. Her writing has appeared in the Believer, Little Star Journal, Prairie Schooner, Tin House and elsewhere.

Agency

—for Stephanie Palumbo

An abyss opens in each searchlight's slender beam.

The horizon flees in both directions. To the left it stumbles on a hill but keeps going.

The dissidents try to unlock the earth with their keys.

There is another way in.

The children know it. They close their eyes and will themselves into constellations, such as: Hamster, Guinea Pig, Lizard.

Up there in space, the stars that the dictator turned off are still there.